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Seeds were from Carolyn's 2013 seed offer and produced this healthy multiflora type that sprouts from everywhere on the vines, branches and all places in-between! Staking/pruning to a single vine? Ah, it thinks not.

Ok, am I the only one who winds up disappointed that most of the flowers on multiflora varieties don't set fruit or do others actually get boatloads of tomatoes from these things? Photo 1 shows the whole flowery plant, pic 2 shows the ripening fruit, pic 3 shows how much fruit actually set, pic 4 shows how much fruit set on Sungold, the plant next to this one; pics 5 & 6 show comparison of its fruit to Sungold F1. See what I mean?

I do like that it's a petite fruit that doesn't seem to be splitting, although there have only been 3 so far that have begun to turn. The first ripe one in the photos that I ate today was a bit sweet but strangely it had no noticeable flavor at all. I'm hoping that will change because I'd love to add a cute little yellow cherry to my keeper collection.

Sorry, Kath. My Blondkopfchen last year was not impressive in taste neither. Black Cherry is the one that keeps on coming back. Matina was the red variety that I liked (not the cherry but bite size). I tried Sungold, Sweet Gold, Supersweet 100, none of them are coming back soon. Maybe you will be lucky and find that awesome taste in gold/yellow cherry. Do not give up.

kath, your old blacks would surely win the competition for ugly tomatoes... I was happy last year to only have 2 of these. I hate cutting away more than half of a tomato. But your Hugh's Black is looking great!

Sorry, Kath. My Blondkopfchen last year was not impressive in taste neither. Black Cherry is the one that keeps on coming back. Matina was the red variety that I liked (not the cherry but bite size). I tried Sungold, Sweet Gold, Supersweet 100, none of them are coming back soon. Maybe you will be lucky and find that awesome taste in gold/yellow cherry. Do not give up.

No biggie, Ella- I'll probaly keep trying. Matina tasted good and was a good producer for me, too, but we don't really use the saladettes so I don't grow them any more unless it's one that's supposed to be extremely early and I can grow it in the greenhouse. Sungold has an awesome taste to me so if I don't find another gold one I like it won't matter to me.

kath, your old blacks would surely win the competition for ugly tomatoes... I was happy last year to only have 2 of these. I hate cutting away more than half of a tomato. But your Hugh's Black is looking great!

Clara, I tossed an Amazon Chocolate (RL) fruit today that weighed 26 oz. that was so cat-faced on all sides that I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of it because I couldn't figure out how to capture its ugliness. Besides that it was partly ripe and oozing from rot. I'm so tired of caring for plants that don't have a single nice fruit on them and are weeks away from producing a ripe fruit to taste that it's getting hard not to pull them.

Clara, I tossed an Amazon Chocolate (RL) fruit today that weighed 26 oz. that was so cat-faced on all sides that I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of it because I couldn't figure out how to capture its ugliness. Besides that it was partly ripe and oozing from rot. I'm so tired of caring for plants that don't have a single nice fruit on them and are weeks away from producing a ripe fruit to taste that it's getting hard not to pull them.

Hugh's Black is a one of the happy exceptions.

kath

Kath, you're going to share seeds from Hugh's right?( please say yes!)
See the trouble you can get into by posting such gorgeous pictures.

Marsha

__________________
Marsha

“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

Sharon, since people post pics of seedlings I think greenies also make great photos! When mine start to ripen, within a week I'm giving them away- it happens fast! Your turn's around the corner.

Ella, ed50 shared the seeds with me but I don't remember if he mentioned his source.

Marsha, I have 2 paper plates of Hugh's Black seeds drying in the basement already and there is at least one more bagged fruit still on the vine, so I'll have plenty of extra seeds and I'm very happy to share them.

I've been thinking that my posts may be coming across as too negative when I just want to paint an accurate picture of how each plant performs in my garden this year. Guess I have to assume that readers know that their experience with these varieties could be the polar opposite of mine, right?

In previous years I was careful to wait until I had a really nice looking fruit before I posted a picture or I posed it with the best side showing but I think that's just as misleading as glossy catalog listings. After a few years of growing out hundreds of varieties I've gotten a bit callous and ruthless in my outlook, which is one of the reasons I considered not doing this thread. Sometimes it seems folks get their feelings hurt about their favorites and their seeds and I don't want to offend anyone, especially those who have generously shared seeds with me. I think the conditions here and the way I grow my plants just makes a lot of them produce even more ugly fruits than what's normal for the variety. Fortunately I'm finding some that appear to be more tolerant than most, year after year, and that also taste great to me!

Probably not. The seeds came to me in a trade as Besser, which is supposed to be a Sungold-size red cherry, at least according to Heirloom Seed's description:

"#137 - BESSER★★ 75 days - From the southern area of Germany (Freiburg region), this old favorite dates back to the 1800's, and is a must for any tomato lover!★ The plants produce 3/4 inch diameter fruit in clusters of up to 12, very sweet, cherry tomatoes. The vigorous vines need strong cages for support.★ Best tasting cherry tomato we've tried!★ Proudly introduced in the United States by Heirloom Seeds.★★ Indeterminate vines."

My plant is definitely determinate, currently about 3' tall and it really wants to be a bush. The cherries are quite big. Taste is a strange kind of sweet.

Hugh's Black,the result of a natural cross, the original is yellow andintoruduced at SEE,when it's not Hugh's at all anymore yet the original name is still used.

Frankenstein, which was red when I first SSE listed it in 1994 turning up as Frankenstein Black. Tania lists the latter, but not the former.So it's only the elderly, that's me,who remember that the original Frankenstein WAS red.

Amana Orange turning up as Amana Pink.

And I could go on and on.Oh,Roger's Best Black,so named b'checouldn't remember the real name of the variety he got the seeds from.

I'm excluding any somatic mutation ones, of course.

The OTHER COLORS section of the SSE Yearbook has exploded with all the listings for ones derived from accidental crosses, yet most have the original name as part of the new name.

I wanted to try the beefsteak, Sweetie, and it wasn't available through Sandhill this year. A fellow Tomatovillian shared seeds for it but early on, it seemed I had a cherry and not a beefsteak plant. It grew what I guess are Sweetie, the cherry, fruits but I can't be sure.

The smallish plant had strange leaf issues in the early part of the season but I kept picking them off and spraying and it seems to have outgrown whatever the problem was. The trusses on this thing are REALLY LONG and the lowest one had to be placed on wooden boards to keep the fruits off the ground. It's a crunchy sort of red fruit that is just about Sungold-size at 0.3-0.4 oz. but isn't as productive as some of the other reds I tried this season.

Hugh's Black,the result of a natural cross, the original is yellow andintoruduced at SEE,when it's not Hugh's at all anymore yet the original name is still used.

Frankenstein, which was red when I first SSE listed it in 1994 turning up as Frankenstein Black. Tania lists the latter, but not the former.So it's only the elderly, that's me,who remember that the original Frankenstein WAS red.

Amana Orange turning up as Amana Pink.

And I could go on and on.Oh,Roger's Best Black,so named b'checouldn't remember the real name of the variety he got the seeds from.

I'm excluding any somatic mutation ones, of course.

The OTHER COLORS section of the SSE Yearbook has exploded with all the listings for ones derived from accidental crosses, yet most have the original name as part of the new name.

Am I just being cranky this morning?

Carolyn

I'm not sure as to the answers to your questions, Carolyn, but this morning I'm blissful in my ignorance and content that I've found me a keeper. I've got my eye on another one of "Whoever's Black" that's ripening on the counter and might be ready to eat this evening.

There are obviously two varieties that are red and one is the one Tania mentions and describes as a cherry, and the one I've been offering in my seed offer here, which I called Sweetie, but is really Wild Sweetie.

Amy Goldman praised it to the skies in her book called it like eating candy.

At the time I was helping somone who lived near her make some tomato choices and he said he'd driven over to her place and asked for seeds. She gave him some fruits and he processed them, and not very well, so what he sent me were bits and pieces and yes, some viable seeds.

Right now I can't remember whch year I offered it ( see below, I went and looked), but I grew it here at home and seeds were also produced for me by one of the good folks who do seed production for me.

It's a currant size red, but as I recall Amy went out of her way to say that it was not a true currant and she listed it in the 2012 Yearbook and said it was from Digger's in Australia and listed it in the regular red section, not the species section.

I listed it with her in the 2013 Yearbook and said my seeds were from D Buchan, the neighbor ( didn't say neighbor)) in 2010.

So that's the Sweetie I've been distributing in my seed offer and I didn't go back to see if I did call it Wild Sweetie, well, I just did go and look and I didn't list it for 2013 but did for 2012 and yes, I did call it Wild Sweetie.

All to say that last week Freda brought in to me a small truss of what looked like to me as Wild Sweetie, it could have been one of the other currant sized ones that were grown here last summer, but ASAP we had to argue about it and she said it was a new plant this year,

Well it could have been if it popped up as a volunteer in that grow bag from two years ago.

So two Sweeties, one bred by Petoseed and called just Sweetie and one called Wild Sweetie, for which Tania has little to no information, the former cherry sized and Wild Sweetie currant sized.

Hope that helps,

Carolyn, who didn't know there was also a Sweetie that was a large beefsteak offered by Glenn at Sandhill. I just looked in his 2012 catalog and found it, but it's pink, not red.

Edited to add that Steve offers Wild Sweetie seeds at his Double Helix website, I don't know if he got them from me, or not, b'c I do send him varieties to trial, from time to time.